


Glass (or; to love something is to render it transparent)

by Crisp_Sobriety



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Teahaw, fjorclay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23436574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crisp_Sobriety/pseuds/Crisp_Sobriety
Summary: Back before either of them had admitted anything, Caduceus once said to him: a great love haunts the world.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Comments: 28
Kudos: 124





	Glass (or; to love something is to render it transparent)

**Author's Note:**

> 1 Inside Caduceus there are two wolves. One ‘is NOT a pacifist’ and believes ‘violence is extremely natural.’ The other errs ‘on the softer side of things’ and is ‘the gentlest boy.’ He is gay.
> 
> 2 This began domestic, tripped and fell into pseudo-religious navel-gazing, then swung around back to domestic with a difference. And I guess that’s the ship, isn’t it?

The stew has to simmer for an hour before it’s done, so everyone splits off into their own goings-on. Fjord (incurable courtly romantic) invites Caduceus for a pre-dinner walk along the shore. Caduceus, demure behind the white veil of his hair, accepts.

They leave the lighthouse together hand-in-hand.

Their walk takes them along the stretch of green in the shadow of Melora, in Nicodranas. The Ball-Eater came ashore two days ago; Fjord can see it from here. He loves that ship. He loves this city. He loves the way Caduceus hums to himself as he goes, swinging their joined hands back and forth. He's using his staff as a walking stick in his other hand, and Fjord loves that too. He loves every sea-salt scent he catches on the breeze. Yes, even the dead fish, though he’d never admit it in polite company.

It’s funny. At some point decay had ceased to be repugnant. He supposes it has something to do with finding religion.

He glances sidelong at Caduceus.

Back before either of them had admitted anything, Caduceus once said to him: a great love haunts the world. It’s behind everything.

Not love (he clarified at the time) as in sleepy, patriarchal benevolence, or a frenzy of kisses. Love in its purest form, which has nothing to do with kindness. The consuming fire itself. Something sublime.

What the gods do for us (he continued), if we ask them to, is they take the desert mortal world and they heat it into glass. Pure and transparent. And then they let you get an eyefull of it. That soul-changing love.

In the present, Caduceus stops humming with a single ‘ _hm_?’ of sudden interest. His ears prick up. He’s staring at a tree they’re coming upon. Fjord is staring at _him_ in turn and thinks to himself

_Not just the gods._

“Wait,” Caduceus says, stopping. He lets go of his hand.

Fjord keeps walking, looks over his shoulder at him. “What? What’s the matter—"

“ _Stop!”_

Before he knows what’s happening Caduceus leaps forward and swings his staff round. It strikes Fjord across the chest.

Fjord, wheezing, finds himself arrested mid-step, almost held aloft. It’s a surprising show of strength from Caduceus but his attention is elsewhere. It seems fixed around Fjord’s feet.

“Okay, _what_ —"

“Sorry, I gotta-- _There_!”

He bends, and then Fjord sees it.

A little bird, so newly-hatched its eyes are still swollen shut, cheeping in the shadow of his boot.

“Oh, _shit_!”

He overbalances, stumbles backwards, chest heaving. Caduceus takes no heed of him, tucking the staff under his arm and kneeling.

“There, now, it’s not so bad,” he croons, scooping the little bird in his hands like cupped water, head bent low. “Look, look, see, you’re going right back up! Left home a little early, is all. That’s all it was. Actually, you remind me of someone…”

A sharper, mature chirp.

There’s a nest in the tree, because of course there is. Fjord didn’t notice it until now. Caduceus did. A starling stands petrified on the lowest branch. Her eye bores into Caduceus, who straightens, the baby bird held close to his chest.

She keeps a careful distance as he approaches. As tall as he is, it's no trouble for him to reach up and replace the bird next to its siblings. Then he turns to the mother starling with a reassuring smile.

“She’s all right, Miss, just a little bit frazzled. Which is understandable, given the circumstances. I’ll let you take over.” And he steps back.

Fjord watches the starling fret for a moment or two before deciding. In a flurry of motion she makes the short flight to her nest, dipping to inspect her rescued child. A chorus of cheeping sounds at her arrival.

“Watch that one, she’s eager!” Caduceus says to her, jocular as if he was addressing a person. The piercing eye of the starling fixes him again --and then seems to dismiss him. 'Very well,' she appears to say. 'You've been useful, and now you may go.' A non-threat can only hold animal interest for so long, after all.

“That was very kind of you,” Fjord says, as they walk hand-in-hand again moments later.

“No, not at all. Just the decent thing to do.”

“Maybe. I think you tend to underestimate your own initiative towards goodness.” But Caduceus waves him off.

After a minute, something occurs to Fjord. He blurts it out. “This might be a stupid question, but what does the wildmother think about…well, saving baby birds? I know She cares about the bird. But She also cares about…say, a fox that might have come along and eaten it. For instance. Cycle of life and death and all that.

“It’s just you always used to say that violence was extremely natural,” he adds, when he gets no immediate reply.

Further silence.

He looks over in time to see Caduceus turn his face from him. In that split-second there was –yes, unmistakable— a slight expression of embarrassment.

“Uh…”

“You’re right, of course” Caduceus says. “The bird will live, but something else will go hungry. It would have been fine to abandon it. Or let you crush it.”

His voice has taken on the register it slips into when he is saying things that are true, not things that he believes.

Lucky for them both, Fjord (recent convert that he is) has no idea what is true, and only knows what he believes. So he leans into Caduceus' side and says:

“Actually, nah, I just thought about it. Because see, for anyone _else_ , that would be true. Anyone _else_ could have crushed that bird, or let it die, and She would have been satisfied. But I think She has different expectations for you. You’re something different.”

Caduceus looks at him, one eyebrow arched. Despite his best impression of pious modesty, he does not love to be contradicted. “And what’s that?” he asks, doubtful.

“Divine intervention.”

It catches him off guard. Fjord can’t suppress a grin at the expression of touched surprise, and then grins wider as he begins to laugh.

Caduceus’ laugh is low and rumbly, but there’s something sharp in it as well. Something lively in the way only things intimately acquainted with death ever are. It puts Fjord in mind of a ship creaking on the sea, of trees falling in the forest. Deep, secretive, wonderful sounds.

 _A great love haunts the world._ But maybe it does have something to do with kindness.

“Do you really think so?” Caduceus asks, suddenly all boyish excitement. Fjord has caught him skipping in moods like this. He whirls around to look at the nest in the distance, hair and silk sleeves trailing after. “Do you think birds pray to Her to be saved?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t see why not.”

“Oh man, I can’t believe I never thought to ask! Where did I leave that choker…?”

“Caleb has it in the amber. Maybe we can dig it out after dinner,” Fjord touches his elbow, lingers there. The gentleness, once so studiously applied, is second-nature now.

They make their way back to the lighthouse. Caduceus rambles about the prayers of birds and the stew waiting for them. The topics blur by way of enthusiasm. Fjord listens, happy to listen, happy to hear his happiness.

It's what they have always done. Fjord, who mirrors what he loves, reflects Caduceus’ kindness back at him. Caduceus, never recognizing his own image, thinks Fjord has invented something luminous. It dazzles him, and illuminates some new dimension of his faith. In this way, they are the engineers of each other's softness.

Far away, beyond the divine gate, Melora sways her vined body in a shimmer of birdsong.


End file.
